“I’m a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up.”

No man knows where the Castle of King Death is. All men and women, boys and girls, and even little wee children should so live that when they have to enter the Castle and see the grim King, they may not fear to behold his face.

I stood beside Van Helsing, and said;- “Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!” He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity:- “Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning!

Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!

I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same.

I’m a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up.

Let me be accurate in everything, for though you and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think that I, Van Helsing, am mad. That the many horrors and the so long strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain.

I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us.

It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.

These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall. But the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow.

Love is, after all, a selfish thing; and it throws a black shadow on anything between which and the light it stands.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere.

She has man’s brain–a brain that a man should have were he much gifted–and woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me when He made that so good combination.

There are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely.

The inscrutable laws of sex have so arranged that even a timid woman is not afraid of a fierce and haughty man.

No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.

There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part.

If you wake up / And the day feels broken / Just lean into the crack

If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.

I want to build as many worlds as possible – each a version of ours with a crack running through it – and not be anchored to any of them.

In my day, we didn’t have the cocaine, so we went out and knocked somebody over the head and took the money. But today, all this cocaine and crack, it doesn’t give kids a chance.